Managed to take some pics of the new ReShade ver on SDR on Sonic 3 A.I.R. Had to play with the levels a bit so it didn’t overblown or wash out anything and i think i got in a state im satisfied with the tweaks i made. I had more pics to post but since im new, i can only show one, so i went for a Up-close Toshiba Microfilter one.
Hopefully this looks ok and not cringeworthy.
Fantastic work - looks great. Glad you’re enjoying the new updated version - it gives a few more options for people. What display are you using?
Its a Philips 236VL. A bit old but looks nice and works ok. I only had to edit the levels and then it looked ok on 90% of the games. 3D ones are still a bit of a pain to look right. But for 2D ones i think that by doing exposure tweaks i can make them work.
Yeah your primary settings you need to change for HDR at least is paper white and peak nits once they are correct then move into the other settings from there.
That’s not bad at all but to be brutally honest, the LCD shots are a bit more convincing. I think it might be the whites that seem a bit off?
On my case, i had to tweak those. LED usually blows whites and clips colors too much, in ReShade’s case, i used Tonemap and changed the gamma a bit and exposure until it regulates the levels for my monitor.
Anyways, here are the other pics i meant to post, the presets are JVC D-AV and the Trinitron 2047 (I think that’s the name)
Totally agree - Im going try adding a Tint option to boost that green and hopefully subdue the yellow. Also I see this a lot in CRTs they really have a low contrast - look at the difference in detail we’re seeing in these pictures. Having said that again in person the CRT really doesn’t look like it’s lost that much detail. I think there’s quite a bit I can do.
Having said all that I was playing my LCD and it just looks better - it’s got better colours. Maybe because it’s got much more dense pixels as its a 27" screen Vs 65" maybe it’s just because I’ve spent FAR more time tuning it. But for now I definitely prefer it. Having said that the CRTs are just bloody amazing especially in fast paced motion such as that Dynamite Heady first level.
Fantastic shots!!! Thanks for posting them - really appreciated. So that first picture looks a little broken (but might be just the slot mask) - what resolution is Sonic running at? Assuming this is the ReShade version. Try matching making the vertical resolution as low as possible and then edit the CRT_HIEGHT #define in the .FX file to be some integer division of that it’s as near as possible to 240p i.e say you can get Sonic down to 720p then set it to 240. CRT_WIDTH can be set to the actual horizontal resolution. Is your display 4K?
Its running at 1920x1080, altrough, the sprites and game res might be 476. Thanks for the shader tho! I just liked it enough to take some pics, its really amazing what this can do with good calibrations.
Is there some reason that stuff can’t be changed in the “preprocessor definitions” like other shaders do it? Seems awkward to have to edit the file for something like resolution that could be different across several games, especially when ReShade allows you to load shaders from a single location rather than copying them out individually.
In this case it’s less about pixel density and more about phosphor density and game resolution and just overall size. Even 55" is way too big for a “retro game on a CRT” experience, you’d have to be sitting really far, and then eyesight is a problem. Retro games (~240p) didn’t even look that good on those huge late-era CRTs like the WEGAs and such, and not just because of the other processing/display quirks from the higher res screens, but because that’s just too big for those small resolutions anyway.
The 480p consoles would probably work better for the “CRT shader on a TV” thing, but even then I wouldn’t want to go past a 48" for that, which is still going to be the equivalent of a huge CRT.
He has to add a #ifndef to it. Btw, i’d suggest making the CRT_WIDTH default to “BUFFER_WIDTH”, that actually made white balancing in a few configs of mine better by default, sure i had to tweak some but, it works much, MUCH better, and probably fixed the problems i was having with the slot mask. With that said, here are some pics with the width fix, presets are (in order): Sony PVM 2730, Sony PVM 20L4, JVC D-Series AV-36D501 and Toshiba Microfilter.
Also, a question regarding high TVL presets: Do i just turn them 1 TVL down on my monitor since its 1080p or do i keep them at TVL res 2?
I disagree on the big TV thing - it looks great on a large TV. In fact I’d say that’s the main benefit of the OLED - a CRT shader is just a specialised upscaler at the end of the day. What I’m comparing is my LCD to OLED in terms of colours and brightness and ATM I prefer the LCD but over time I’m sure I’ll get the OLED better - I think I just need more time with it. Obviously your preferences are your preferences though.
Just for comparison these are the Sony 2730QM, JVC 36D and JVC H1950CG presets on my 27" 4K LCD:
Sony 2730QM:
JVC 36D:
JVC H1950CG:
Yeah, very similar! Altrough i feel like the Slot Mask one is the most different one in comparison to the other 2. The rest is fine tho! Glad to see i managed to correctly config this.
With your images were you going for a blurry look as in a RF or composite signal? If I was to hazard a guess in Sonic 3 A.I.R settings under Display->General Upscaling is not set to ‘Integer Scale’ and or Screen Filter is not set to ‘Sharp’. Is that true and if so is that on purpose?
Yes, it is, im using GTU in the background.
Ah great stuff - what is GTU btw?
It’s an interpolation shader that seems to simulate Video Signal Resolution control.
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/CRT_shaders
It can make Dracula’s eyes in Castlevania: SOTN go from this:
To this:
It can also blend Sega Genesis dithering but you have to know what you’re doing because it can also make things look blurry.
Yes ok so because GTU is not built into the Megatron shader it’s probably not doing what we’d really like as in it will get overly blurred because it’s working on a native 1080p or 4K image and then the Megatron will downsample that. I just did a test of my NTSC preset in RetroArch and we come up with this - better clarity. @Matsilagi let me know if you’d be interested in this and I’ll integrate into the ReShade version.
If you want to easily try GTU with Megatron in retroarch – in sdr for now-- you can try the Mega Bezel screen only preset which has GTU integrated.
You’d need to switch it on in the parameters, it’s probably about 3/4 down the parameter list.
